“I love you, Alexa. I want you and I want our baby. I want this ridiculous hound dog because I've grown to love him, too. I also figured out what I don't want. I don't want to live my life without you. I don't want to be alone anymore. And I don't want to believe I deserve not to have you. And I swear to God, I'll spend the rest of my life making this up to you. - Nicholas Ryan”
―
Jennifer Probst,
The Marriage Bargain
“If we don't think about our death until we die, how can we decide how we want to live?” ― Jennifer Ryan, The Chilbury Ladies' Choir
“Human nature defeats me sometimes, how greed and spite can lurk so divisively around the utmost courage and sacrifice.” ― Jennifer Ryan, The Chilbury Ladies' Choir
“Then I looked out onto the horizon myself and realized that loss is the same wherever you go: overwhelming, inexorable, deafening. How resilient human beings are that we can learn slowly to carry on when we are left all alone, left to fill the void as best we can. Or disappear into it.” ― Jennifer Ryan, The Chilbury Ladies' Choir
“Emily tucks her knees up beneath her and leans forward on the table. 'Do you like Ryan?' she asks Nick, and Mom's eyes go wide. Kevin chokes a little on his water. Mortified, Ryan looks away, holding her breath.Nick turns to Emily, and with mock seriousness, leans down to consult with her. 'Do you like Ryan?'Emily considers this a moment, tapping a finger against her lips in thought. 'I guess most of the time,' she says finally. 'I guess she's okay.''Then I think so too' he says, turning back to the rest of the table. He winks at Ryan. 'We've decided you're okay.'She breathes out. 'I can live with that.” ― Jennifer E. Smith, The Comeback Season
“You are an amazing woman, Maggie Ryan.” He gazed deep into her eyes and told the truth. “Stay with me.” ― Jennifer Probst, The Marriage Trap
“Music takes us out of ourselves, away from our worries and tragedies, helps us look into a different world, a bigger picture. All those cadences and beautiful chord changes, every one of them makes you feel a different splendor of life.” ― Jennifer Ryan, The Chilbury Ladies' Choir
“Beside her, she can feel each breath he draws. How is it possible to be so close to a person and still not know what you are to each other? With baseball, it's simple. There's no mystery to what happens on the field because everything has a label -- full count, earned run, perfect game -- and there's a certain amount of comfort in this terminology. There's no room for confusion and Ryan wishes now that everything could be so straightforward. But then Nick pulls her closer, and she rests her head on his chest, and nothing seems more important that this right here.” ― Jennifer E. Smith, The Comeback Season
“[...] Some parts were totally inappropriate. The corded length of his arms. The broad shoulders and chest that stretched and molded the fabric. The deep bronze of his skin as if he had been lying in the sun for hours. The animal litheness of his movements. He had grown up, and he was no pretty boy. Nick Ryan was all hot-blooded man—and still looked at her as Maggie’s little playmate.” ― Jennifer Probst, The Marriage Bargain
“Guys like Ryan Cross have a way of reminding you who you are, even when you don’t want to remember.” ― Jennifer Niven, All the Bright Places
“And I realized that this is what it's like to be an adult, learning to pick from a lot of bad choices and do the best you can with that dreadful compromise. Learning to smile, to put your best foot forward, when the world around you seems to have collapsed in its entirety, become a place of isolation, a sepia photograph of its former illusion.” ― Jennifer Ryan, The Chilbury Ladies' Choir
“I took a deep breath of the syrupy sweetness of summer, suffused with bees and birds, and I thought to myself how beautiful this world can be. How lucky we are to be here, to be part of it, for however long we have.” ― Jennifer Ryan, The Chilbury Ladies' Choir
“And isn't love between two people better than hatred, in this world of violence and mourning? There seemed to me a fragile kindness in their love that survived through this poisonous war. Even though one of them hadn't.” ― Jennifer Ryan, The Chilbury Ladies' Choir
“As far as I could tell, my history teacher had three passions in life: quoting Shakespeare, identifying historical inaccuracies in cable TV shows, and berating Ryan Washburn. “Eighteen sixty-three, Mr. Washburn. Is that so hard to remember? Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in eighteen sixty-three.” Ryan was a big guy: a little on the quiet side, a little shy. I had no idea what it was about him that had convinced Mr. Simpson he needed to be taken down a notch—or seven. But more and more, this was how history class went: Simpson called on Ryan, repeatedly, until he made a mistake. And then it began.” ― Jennifer Lynn Barnes, The Fixer
“Sometimes the magic of life is beyond thought. It's the sparkle of intuition, of bringing your own personal energy into your music.” ― Jennifer Ryan, The Chilbury Ladies' Choir
“You need to find where you fit in this world, where you are happiest, where you can make a difference. And don’t be afraid of change.” ― Jennifer Ryan, The Chilbury Ladies' Choir
“Grief feels a lot like fear. We’re afraid of it taking us over. But we owe it to ourselves, to those we have lost, to let grief in. Only then can we start to remember them with a cheer in our heart, a cheer for them and all that they were.” ― Jennifer Ryan, The Spies of Shilling Lane
“A sense of responsibility— or was it guilt?— hung over me, that I was in some way at fault because of cowering to all these pompous men all these years, when I should have had the bravery to reclaim my own mind. That if we women had done this years ago, before the last war, before this one, we’d be in a very different world.” ― Jennifer Ryan, The Chilbury Ladies' Choir
“Where is that incredible promise I hear my colleagues chatting about in the teachers’ lounge?” Mr. Simpson asked Ryan facetiously. “You have a lot of fans at this school, Mr. Washburn. Surely they can’t all be mistaken about your intellectual capacity. Perhaps the emancipation of every enslaved human being in this country is simply not significant enough to merit a student of your remarkable caliber taking note of the date?” ― Jennifer Lynn Barnes, The Fixer
“If we don't think about our death until we die, how can we decide how we want to live?” ― Jennifer Ryan, The Chilbury Ladies' Choir
“Human nature defeats me sometimes, how greed and spite can lurk so divisively around the utmost courage and sacrifice.” ― Jennifer Ryan, The Chilbury Ladies' Choir
“Then I looked out onto the horizon myself and realized that loss is the same wherever you go: overwhelming, inexorable, deafening. How resilient human beings are that we can learn slowly to carry on when we are left all alone, left to fill the void as best we can. Or disappear into it.” ― Jennifer Ryan, The Chilbury Ladies' Choir
“Emily tucks her knees up beneath her and leans forward on the table. 'Do you like Ryan?' she asks Nick, and Mom's eyes go wide. Kevin chokes a little on his water. Mortified, Ryan looks away, holding her breath.Nick turns to Emily, and with mock seriousness, leans down to consult with her. 'Do you like Ryan?'Emily considers this a moment, tapping a finger against her lips in thought. 'I guess most of the time,' she says finally. 'I guess she's okay.''Then I think so too' he says, turning back to the rest of the table. He winks at Ryan. 'We've decided you're okay.'She breathes out. 'I can live with that.” ― Jennifer E. Smith, The Comeback Season
“You are an amazing woman, Maggie Ryan.” He gazed deep into her eyes and told the truth. “Stay with me.” ― Jennifer Probst, The Marriage Trap
“Music takes us out of ourselves, away from our worries and tragedies, helps us look into a different world, a bigger picture. All those cadences and beautiful chord changes, every one of them makes you feel a different splendor of life.” ― Jennifer Ryan, The Chilbury Ladies' Choir
“Beside her, she can feel each breath he draws. How is it possible to be so close to a person and still not know what you are to each other? With baseball, it's simple. There's no mystery to what happens on the field because everything has a label -- full count, earned run, perfect game -- and there's a certain amount of comfort in this terminology. There's no room for confusion and Ryan wishes now that everything could be so straightforward. But then Nick pulls her closer, and she rests her head on his chest, and nothing seems more important that this right here.” ― Jennifer E. Smith, The Comeback Season
“[...] Some parts were totally inappropriate. The corded length of his arms. The broad shoulders and chest that stretched and molded the fabric. The deep bronze of his skin as if he had been lying in the sun for hours. The animal litheness of his movements. He had grown up, and he was no pretty boy. Nick Ryan was all hot-blooded man—and still looked at her as Maggie’s little playmate.” ― Jennifer Probst, The Marriage Bargain
“Guys like Ryan Cross have a way of reminding you who you are, even when you don’t want to remember.” ― Jennifer Niven, All the Bright Places
“And I realized that this is what it's like to be an adult, learning to pick from a lot of bad choices and do the best you can with that dreadful compromise. Learning to smile, to put your best foot forward, when the world around you seems to have collapsed in its entirety, become a place of isolation, a sepia photograph of its former illusion.” ― Jennifer Ryan, The Chilbury Ladies' Choir
“I took a deep breath of the syrupy sweetness of summer, suffused with bees and birds, and I thought to myself how beautiful this world can be. How lucky we are to be here, to be part of it, for however long we have.” ― Jennifer Ryan, The Chilbury Ladies' Choir
“And isn't love between two people better than hatred, in this world of violence and mourning? There seemed to me a fragile kindness in their love that survived through this poisonous war. Even though one of them hadn't.” ― Jennifer Ryan, The Chilbury Ladies' Choir
“As far as I could tell, my history teacher had three passions in life: quoting Shakespeare, identifying historical inaccuracies in cable TV shows, and berating Ryan Washburn. “Eighteen sixty-three, Mr. Washburn. Is that so hard to remember? Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in eighteen sixty-three.” Ryan was a big guy: a little on the quiet side, a little shy. I had no idea what it was about him that had convinced Mr. Simpson he needed to be taken down a notch—or seven. But more and more, this was how history class went: Simpson called on Ryan, repeatedly, until he made a mistake. And then it began.” ― Jennifer Lynn Barnes, The Fixer
“Sometimes the magic of life is beyond thought. It's the sparkle of intuition, of bringing your own personal energy into your music.” ― Jennifer Ryan, The Chilbury Ladies' Choir
“You need to find where you fit in this world, where you are happiest, where you can make a difference. And don’t be afraid of change.” ― Jennifer Ryan, The Chilbury Ladies' Choir
“Grief feels a lot like fear. We’re afraid of it taking us over. But we owe it to ourselves, to those we have lost, to let grief in. Only then can we start to remember them with a cheer in our heart, a cheer for them and all that they were.” ― Jennifer Ryan, The Spies of Shilling Lane
“A sense of responsibility— or was it guilt?— hung over me, that I was in some way at fault because of cowering to all these pompous men all these years, when I should have had the bravery to reclaim my own mind. That if we women had done this years ago, before the last war, before this one, we’d be in a very different world.” ― Jennifer Ryan, The Chilbury Ladies' Choir
“Where is that incredible promise I hear my colleagues chatting about in the teachers’ lounge?” Mr. Simpson asked Ryan facetiously. “You have a lot of fans at this school, Mr. Washburn. Surely they can’t all be mistaken about your intellectual capacity. Perhaps the emancipation of every enslaved human being in this country is simply not significant enough to merit a student of your remarkable caliber taking note of the date?” ― Jennifer Lynn Barnes, The Fixer
